In April, Intel revealed that the next version of its Atom processor family, code named Bay Trail, would be available inside products, including Windows 8 tablets and hybrids, by the end of 2013. Today, the company talked about the microarchitecture that Bay Trail and other processors will use, which has the code named Silvermont. It's the first major change in Intel's low power design since 2008.

Intel's press release said that chips with the Silvermont microarchitecture will be made with the 22nm Tri-Gate SoC process and will have up to three times the performance of chips that use the current Atom microarchitecture. At the same time, the Silvermont setup will lower a chip's power consumption by up to five times that of the current Atom chip.

Atom processors with the Silvermont microarchitecture will be able to have as many as eight cores, although it's likely that any Windows tablets that use chips with the Silvermont design will have around two to four cores. The first Bay Trail chips, for example, will have four cores, and Intel says that other versions of Bay Trail may be used in entry-level laptops and even in desktops with "innovative form factors."

In addition to Bay Trail, Intel will use the Silvermont microarchitecture for a new family of smartphone chips, under the code name Merrifield, that will be ready by the end the year. It will also be used for chips made for micro-servers, with the code name Avoton.